Airport management staff and airlines were pulled up by the directorate general of civil aviation for poor information flow to passengers on the first day of dense fog. Monday recorded the city's first spell of dense fog which severely disrupted air traffic. Several passengers complained that they were unaware of flight delays till the last minute.
'We had held a couple of meetings with airlines, Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd (DIAL) and other agencies on fog readiness. However, on Monday we received complaints that information on flight schedules was not forthcoming and the flight information display system (FIDS) at the airport was not up to date. We held a review and many directives that had been issued earlier were reinforced. All agencies need to pull up their socks," said DGCA chief EK Bharat Bhushan.
However, Tuesday brought some respite with only some international flights being delayed till Tuesday morning - between 1.30 am and 3.30 am - when the fog was most intense. Many flights were delayed in several parts of eastern India, including Uttar Pradesh and Bengal. "Most flights from Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Bagdogra, Patna, Kolkata and Allahabad could not operate according to schedule since airports in these cities are not equipped to handle air traffic during very low visibility. That led to some consequential delays till evening but no major disruption occurred," said an airline official.
Meanwhile, a day after first dense fog of the season badly affected the air and rail traffic in the Capital, the situation improved considerably on Tuesday with a fewer cancellations and delays. The flight operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport were almost normal with just four cancellations and about 80 delays.
According to the Meteorological Department, the airport witnessed dense fog from 1-30 a.m. to 3 a.m., while low visibility procedure remained in place from 7-30 p.m. on Monday to 9-48 a.m. on Tuesday with a three-hour lull in between. The weatherman said the dense fog is likely to return towards the month-end.
An airport official claimed that most of the flights were delayed due to congestion and backlog and majority of the flights operated on time in the afternoon. Also, the four flights that were cancelled due to foggy weather ran on small routes like Allahabad and Dehra Dun.
At least a dozen flights had to be cancelled and more than 150 were delayed due to dense fog on Monday, causing great inconvenience to passengers.
The situation on the train front also improved with Northern Railway claiming that just 61 trains were running behind schedule compared to 114 on Monday. Besides, 43 trains were cancelled and 12 were partially cancelled.
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